Amazon Restricted products violation - appeal before suspension
Hello,
by accident, we listed some products which are prohibited for sale on Amazon. Our account is currently under review and we have to appeal in order not to be suspended. I prepared a plan of action.
I received the following email:
As we discussed, you have listed items that are not permitted for sale on Amazon. Items listed for sale on Amazon must adhere to all applicable laws and regulations and Amazon’s policies. Here are some examples of products you have listed that violate Amazon policy:
Product: XXXXXXX
This product has been identified as an e-cigarette or part thereof (such as refill packaging, cartridge, reservoir with or without nicotine). For more information, please contact Seller Support and see “Category and Product Restrictions” and “Tobacco and Tobacco Related Products” on the Sellers Help page.
What’s next?
To continue selling on Amazon, you must submit a plan of action within 72 hours. A valid plan of action contains three parts:
– A detailed explanation of the root cause(s) of the violations
– Confirmation that you have closed or deleted all restricted product listings from your inventory
– The proactive steps you have taken to prevent any similar violations in the future
Here are a few things to consider as you create your plan:
– Policies: Carefully review Amazon’s Restricted Products policies in the Amazon Seller Central Help pages.
– Know Your Responsibilities: If you supply goods on Amazon, you are responsible for ensuring that your listings comply with all applicable laws and Amazon’s policies. You can find best practices for compliance with our policies by searching “Additional Information and Resources for Sellers about our Restricted Products Policy” in the Amazon Seller Central Help pages.
– Stay Informed: Laws, regulations and policies are subject to change, and for international sellers, differ from marketplace to marketplace, so audit your inventory for compliance on a regular basis. This particularly includes listings that are added using inventory feeds or uploaded using automated systems.
Could you give me your thoughts on this appeal please?
Dear Amazon,
I am general manager of our company and owner of the account and I would like to apologize for violation of Amazon policies. Thank you for allowing me to appeal.
- We are under review as we listed batteries for „electronic cigarettes“ which are restricted from sale on Amazon
- Our listings are uploaded via API interface and in this case we failed to properly check the items before issuing the listing on Amazon. As we were uploading a new batch of products, we wrongly assessed a new category called „batteries for e-cigarettes“ and „batteries for airsoft guns“ thus the prohibited items were listed.
- I failed to implement a control mechanism in order to remove all the items which are prohibited on Amazon
- I failed to educate our staff about the restricted products on Amazon and the impact which listing such products might have on our Amazon account selling ability.
I am fully responsible for the mistake and we have implemented the following Plan of action.
- We reviewed the Amazon policies paying special attention to Category, Product, and Content Restrictions part in order to know in detail which products are prohibited from sale on Amazon.
- We reviewed Amazon seller university in order to find out more information about the compliance regulations
- We went through the products in each of our categories in order to identify the products which are possibly in violation of Amazon policies in order to be completely sure, that all our products listed on Amazon adhere to Amazon policies.
- We closed all the listings which we identified as prohibited as per Amazon selling policy
In order to prevent this issue from happening me and my employees did the following:
- We will use Amazon seller university as an educational material and reference material for us and our employees.
- We will always check the Amazon policies when listing new products and we will regularly review the Amazon policies and local law regualtions for any changes.
- We will never list a product where we are not 100% sure, that it adheres to Amazon policies
- New listings will be always additionally reviewed by manager prior to listing by the programmer.
- We will implement into our selling software an automatic system, which will flag for us the potentially restricted products based on the keywords from Category, Product, and Content Restrictions.
We assure you that we have resolved all the issues that led to the named problems. If you have any queries or need any further information please do not hesitate to contact us.
Kind Regards
5 replies
Seller_EOmLRMFX8Oo9x
I am certainly not an expert on POA’s like some of the experienced sellers but can generally spot pretty quickly what’s wrong with a POA and to be honest it looks pretty good to me, you have the 3 basic sections covered.
One thing I would add to section 2 is
Is add a couple of links that you actually went through, it shows you have gone in and looked for the information rather than just typing what they want to hear.
You have taken responsibility and explained how it went wrong, stated what you have done to put it right and what will be implemented to stop it happening again in the future
I would wait for the other guys to look through it before sending it off as I may have missed something but in general I think that’s pretty good…well done
Seller_vMsxjZPrdu6uI
I agree with Kingstar on this, I am no expert though but it looks quite good. Add some links, I think Amazon like to see that from what have read
How was that allowed to happen?
Why did you fail to do that?
Do you mean you have deleted them? I know its pedantic but close is different from delete, technically
How regularly, once a month is better than once a year
Just some thoughts, thats all. Good luck
Edit
And this may be better in the middle section…ie you have done it
Seller_BS5lg2keRs2QO
I’m not going to offer as much detail on the PoA as a whole as i would usually, but it’s not clear to me whether this was a software issue, a people issue, or a both issue. You’ve made some mention of training which suggests you think it is a people issue, but it seems dangerous to me to have software which can create listings with just a yes/no decision by a human.
It seems you are creating listings without actually buying stock?
Seller_Wqg5EgqxuOwDD
I think this is your key root issue. I’d say you need to expand on why you didn’t notice this. I think your POA is trying to tick the boxes and tbf it does tick a lot of them. Unfortunately I think where it is failing - and I’d like to emphasise only slightly - is that you are not taking that extra step to advise where you have gone wrong on this aspect and what you will do to make sure it will never happen again. I sincerely think this will impede you.
So have a look at what you’ve actually said re airsoft guns and explain why you thought this would be acceptable as regards e-cigarettes? When you do this bear in mind that e-cigarretes is one of those trigger areas where Amazon want to make sure all is as it should be.
I’d also say that you need to expand on the API interface aspect. This isn’t really an excuse because before uploading this really should be looked at, so you absolutely need to be giving chapter and verse on how you’ll make sure the fact that it’s API upload will ensure this doesn’t happens in the future.
I would add an actual link here. I’d also give a bit more detail on the reality of what this means. So when will a member of staff look at this, what will be the follow up?
So what criteria will you use to determine this? This is a very generic sentance which in reality means nothing.
That’s great but what actual policies have been impemented to ensure this? Again a very glib sentence but Amazon will want to see how you’ve backed it up in reality.
Can you demonstrate you’ve done this? On the basis that you can this should actually say “we have…”
I hope this has helped a bit.
Amar_Amazon
Hello Techtek_gmbh,
The restricted products policy is separate for each market places. It is governed by the respective government authority of the marketplace a seller operates in.
So, the law applicable in UK marketplace may not apply for that of other marketplaces.
Therefore, while creating listings for each marketplaces it is important we read the policies exclusive to that particular marketplace and also check government portal to identify if the listings we wish to offer is included or not in the restricted product list of that marketplace.
As you have been found to be listing an item that is prohibited in the UK marketplace, we would suggest to prepare a plan of action:
Root Cause:
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Acknowledging the issue on the account.
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Are you able to understand why your listings are violating our policies?
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Are you able to understand how your business practices directly affect the risk of deactivation of your account?
Corrective Measures:
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What actions have you taken in place regarding the current problem or is the problem still on going?
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Have you closed or deleted all listings that were identified?
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Did you go through all similar listings in your inventories as well?
Preventive Steps:
- Have you put a plan in place to prevent the same issue going forward?
Here for the preventive steps I would recommend that you should seek to find in-depth understanding of how you will stay alert to laws and regulations of your listings
For the last part, referring to government sites for more insights and providing links of the same in your plan of action, would give it a boost.
After preparation of plan of action submit the same by replying to the notification received.
Good Luck!!
Amar
